Stranger in the Mirror
by Kaeru Shisho
Summary: Xelloss awakens to discover himself in a living nightmare. He has lost his memory.
1. Chapter 1

**Stranger in the Mirror**

* * *

He registered pain; that was his first reckoning with awareness, that and light. Even through his closed eyelids, he knew it was light, daylight, brighter than candles. He wanted to remain asleep, to never open his eyes and escape the painful throbbing in his head, but a desperate willpower broke through the lull of never-ending nothingness. He needed to open his eyes or he might never do so again! Heavy-- when had raising his eyelids become so onerous an endeavor?

He was near to panicking when he finally cracked open one eye far enough to assure himself that he could and that it was indeed very light outside his head. A thunderbolt of light stabbed him blind and pounded his ears. His lids snapped shut as an automatic protection mechanism, and his intestines clenched and seized up. He groaned and waited for the nausea to pass. What had happened to him? Where was he?

The next question to enter his head was a head-pounding, terrifying one: who was he? He had no idea what his name was. He couldn't recall anything of his past. Not one event. Not one moment. Despite the pain he knew it would bring, he abruptly sat up and frantically wrenched open his eyes. Remember! The sheer effort of the exertion sent him careening back onto the bed. His head hit the stack of pillows, delivering him a constellation of painful sensations. The misery and torment was becoming an assurance that he was alive.

"Oh, I see yer've finally waked up," came a woman's voice from a short distance away.

"Ugh," he replied, then realized that his mouth worked, although it was dry. With an effort of will drawn from some unknown source of strength, he opened his eyes again. "Where ...?"

"Oooh, hold on. I getcher some water. You're croakin' like a bullfrog."

The cheery-voiced speaker was gone from the doorway, leaving him to agonize over his situation in private a few minutes longer. No manner of concentration, however, could clear the fogginess in his head.

"Ah, yer still awake." The same caregiver returned carrying a pitcher and a cup. "Take a drink and then I suppose you'll go back to sleep like you've done before."

He sipped at the water, but feeling little relief, he set the cup on the bedside table and struggled to remain alert. "I'm not going back to sleep."

"Suit yerself," she said, smiling.

He drew a deep breath and fought to control his pain and his body's habit of passing out. "Where am I?"

"Chancey's Inn in Newbark. A farmer brought you in a week ago on a hay wagon. Found you by the roadside. By the look of your clothes he knew yer were a traveling priest. We put up the roving men of god here for free," the woman said with pride.

"So, you don't know what happened... Why my head...? Who I...?" His mouth snapped shut, aware of and perturbed with by his own inability to finish a thought.

"Oh, we figured you got attacked by bandits, though what kind I couldn't guess."

"Kind?"

"Stupid or Stupider! No priest carries anything of value to be robbed of!" she laughed.

"Oh...I see."

But he didn't see. That didn't explain anything to him.

"Yer clothes are clean, so they didn't rough yer up none. Just banged yer over the head and ran off, I guess. No other injuries that I could see. I just had a man lay yer out here and been checkin' on yer regular like. This is the second conversation we've had. Don't suppose you recall the earlier one? No? Yer forget this one too until yer head's fixed, though I can't see you was hit hard enough to bleed or crack the bone. Heads are funny like that."

He nodded and closed his eyes. That was a mistake. Now he would have to start all over again to get them to open, which he couldn't, and he drifted back to sleep.

When he re-awoke the room was darker but coated in a warm ambient glow. Through the shaded window, late afternoon light illuminated everything it touched, like a honey slick. He didn't know if it was the same day or another, but he remembered being awake earlier and conversing with another person.

He was a priest found unconscious on the road by a farmer and brought to Chancey's Inn in Newbark. There! He could remember that perfectly, so why, then, could he not remember a single, damned thing more, in particular, his own name?

The pounding of blood to his brain had stopped. At least there was that relief. The pain had subsided, but not left him entirely. As he sat up there was no nausea, just a little lightheadedness and a great deal of inertia. He sat a long time before throwing his legs over the side of the bed, giving him the opportunity to study his surroundings.

He picked up a book on his bedside table, "Aiden's Book of Verse." He thumbed through a few pages reading banal lines of pastoral poetry feeling pleased that he could read the script, because it implied that he wasn't far from his native land or that, possibly, he was a scholar. Also on the table sat a half-full box of tiny "Rhys" crackers, which, he decided, were probably left by his attendant. He blushed to think someone had sat at his bed watching him as he slept, but there was hardly anything he could do about that now. Besides, it was better than being left neglected by the side of the road.

Then he sat some more, mulling over what to do next, which was a challenge considering his body's constant desire to return to a state of inertia. He looked at his hands and discovered that he was wearing fine, pale gray gloves. He removed them one at a time. Whatever his employment was in the past, his trim nails and callous-free, clean hands were an indication that he had not been a laborer. He noticed that something important, he felt it was _very_ important, was missing. He had all his limbs; fingers and toes were in order; at least, he felt a sufficient number of toes when he wriggled them in his shoes– it would take far too much effort to remove his shoes and actually look. But the feeling that a part of him was gone continued to nettle his mind, dragging his attention back to the problem if it attempted to wander elsewhere.

He spotted a mirror over a dresser on the far side of the room. His desire to see his face overcame his lethargy for an instant, and he sprang from the bed, nearly tripping over the edge of the rug. The sudden need for privacy tickled at the back of his mind. He didn't want to be caught examining himself, but the door was in the opposite direction. With a passing thought, he wished the door would remain closed for privacy. The door was forgotten in a flash the moment he caught sight of his reflected image, or of a face belonging to _someone,_ in the mirror.

Once he stared into the mirror nothing else mattered. There was a stranger in the mirror looking back at him, eyes wide in astonishment. That he understood the mechanics of a looking glass meant that the face he saw was his. And it wasn't that there was anything particularly wrong with the face, just it wasn't familiar to him in any way. Black hair, no, the deepest darkest purple, cut straight across his brow and hung straight at the sides, grazing his shoulders. The features were even, nose straight, lips not overly sensual or full, but quick to smile. Those lips were smiling now.

"What's so funny?" he asked the face in the mirror. He was surprised to hear the answer come automatically from his own lips, "That's a secret!" and one of his almond-shaped eyes wink, as if the stranger in the mirror was in on the joke.

The return of his sense of loss chipped away at his patience. "You're an impish bastard," he snapped aloud.

He was of two minds as to whether or not to continue his examination. He knew innately that he would not find signs of any injuries, as if seeing that his clothes were undamaged meant that the flesh beneath them would be as well. He was, nevertheless, curious as to what his body might reveal about himself. So, he stood wondering what to do, feeling that undressing was a unfamiliar activity for him.

"This is ridiculous," he snapped. "I hope I haven't always been the simpleton I am now."

He unclasped the ornate pin holding his cloak closed and removed the heavy cloth, draping it over his arm. He was about to check his neck for bruises when the care giver returned, banging on the door and attempting to gain entrance.

"Lor' it's stuck again!"

"No wait!" he shouted, fearing she might break it down to get in. He spun around and made a dash for the door. "Allow me."

He gave the knob a jiggle and found it was secured shut. "It's locked."

"Can't be," she said. "Locks er all busted in the free rooms. Juss stuck. I'll give it a go."

"No!" he cried out. "Here ..."

This time he "thought" about unlocking the door, and the knob turned smoothly, allowing him to open the door with ease. Oh my. Had he locked the door to his room with mental resolve alone? On his way to the mirror– he had wished it bolted closed. And it locked. Now, with a simple thought, had he released it? He had no idea if this made him unique or not, but he knew implicitly that he had employed magic to both lock and unlock the door, and that the woman entering the room had not. It was gratifying to know that he was superior in some way.

"You're up!" she said grinning with pleasure that he was well. "And smiling, too."

"Yes, I'm feeling quite..." He nearly said normal, but wondered what normal might be for him and substituted another word, "fit."

She looked him over unreservedly, causing him to blush a second time. "Yer look hale and hearty, al'rit. Bit on the thin side. Ah, I see yer got yer cape off, too. I couldn't get a fix on unhooking that thing."

"It is complicated," he said with a smile. "There is another thing you might be able to help me with. I seem to have lost something, but I can't say what. Something important."

"Important?" The woman screwed up her face in concentration. "Yer had no money..."

He wasn't about to wonder how she ascertained that. "Not loose things, I don't think. Like... a part of me. I know that sounds silly, but it is essential that I find it. It's more a matter of great significance to me than of value to anyone else. Oh, and I think it was rather large," he added as a ragged trace of memory returned.

"Yer staff!" she said, delighted to have remembered that. "No man of the cloth would feel right without his staff. I daresay it feels a part of you."

"Yes," he replied quickly, his hands itching to hold something. "That must be it. Do you know where it is?" His excitement was tempered by his fear that it had been stolen or lost along the way.

"I do and I'll get it for you. Put it in the closet here for safe-keeping."

She opened a closet door revealing an empty space with hooks for hanging hats and robes. At the back leaned a tall, wooden staff. He moved before she did, snatching it out of her hand before she closed her fingers around it.

"Thank you," he said, a bit breathless. "Thank you for guarding this."

His obvious relief and pleasure smoothed over her ruffled feathers after he had taken it away so hastily. She huffed a moment before saying, "Well, I guess anyone can see it's important to yer. In fact, if you go to the nearest shrine they might be able to help you find yer way back to where yer came from."

"Really? Why do you think so?" he asked

"By the decoration, of course! All priests belonging common to a shrine carry staffs marked the same. Yers would all have one of them red glass balls atop it."

A fleeting image came to mind. "What of a staff with rings at the top? Have you ever seen priests carrying a staff like that?"

"Rings? Loose ones? No, not that I've ever noticed, and many wandering men of the cloth come through here. We're at a crossroads where the main road leads north to Seyruun."

"It doesn't matter," he shrugged. "Could you tell me where to find a shrine in town?"

"Yes. You'll be leavin' then?"

"I should. I've taken up your space and hospitality a long time."

"And you'll be needing to find yer way home. I suppose you have family missing' you somethin' fierce?"

He hadn't thought about that. Had he a family? A wife and children? Friends? He had no yearning to rejoin them or guilt for having forgotten them.

"I don't know," he admitted.

He wanted his identity back, but his overriding feeling of pride wouldn't allow him to let on how much memory loss he had suffered. "Possibly. I don't know if I was traveling alone or not."

"Oh, lor... I do hope yer family's well. Hadn't thought 'bout that. Mr...? Whatcher name?"

Name? Damn it all! He must have a name! His memory locked on to two names which would do until his memory returned.

"Aiden Rhys," he answered with a smile.

"So yer know that, Mr. Rhys," she grinned back. "Good. Wouldn't want a man runnin' loose who didn't even know his own name. So, would yer like a bite to eat before yer go? Haven't had nothin' fer a week. Yer must be hungry."

But he wasn't. Not at all. He was bone weary, but he desired no food.

"No, thank you, but I'll have another cup a water, please?"

"Get yerself a drink at the bar and a bite," she ordered him with motherly concern. "Or I won't sleep at night fer worry."

His bemused smile must not have impressed her. "It won't cost yer a cent, if that's what's worryin' ya," she added.

Aiden nodded and left the room with directions to the nearest shrine. He followed her downstairs and turned under her watchful gaze into the dining area of the inn. Even though little light filtered in through the grease and dust-encrusted windows, he had no trouble seeing. Even the darkest shadows gave up something to his eyes. He had no idea why his vision was better than normal human vision, no more than why that might be so, but he was certain that it was. There he knew something more about himself!.

When his eyes swept the tables then the bar, he had only seconds to process the figures bent over their drinks before his brain froze up. A flash of brilliant light and an agonizing pain that crushed the life from him became his new reality. It did not matter that light and sensation were only memories. The vision was so concrete that he could taste the bitter smoke of burning flesh. Aiden nearly collapsed to the floor, but a chair caught the brunt of his weight.

It was the return of a tiny piece of his memory, a significant turning point, he thought, possibly the one that caused his injury and memory loss. What had caused the light? An explosion, probably resulting from a very powerful spell– that seemed obvious enough. Was he the magic user, or someone else? He had no answer to that, and so he centered his attention on what else had been in that picture: golden hair, long and flowing. The more he concentrated on the vision, the murkier it became until there was nothing left but a feeling of emptiness, despair, and the dramatic light.

He had caught himself half in a chair, half over a table. Now, he stood on his feet and looked around again, hoping to find what it was he had seen that had triggered the memory. Dark wood flooring with ten tables, mismatched chairs, half a dozen people, all human, two at the bar– that was it. The bar. There was figure seated at the bar, back turned to Aiden, fair hair flowing past the seat of the bar stool.

What did the long, blonde hair signify? Aiden didn't know, but he had to find out. He felt certain that this was a clue to his past, possibly someone important and critical to his well-being. He approached the person sitting at the bar. He thought it was a woman, but on closer observation, the shoulders were too broad. He cleared his throat and tapped the person on the shoulder.

"Excuse me?" he said.

The stranger turned his head, straightened his back, and looked over, not up, for he was so tall that the two men were nearly was eye-level with him sitting down. They stood regarding one another for a moment, and when he could wait no longer, Aiden smiled and asked, "You know me?"

It was tentative, just barely hopeful that it was true.

"Xelloss."

The man said his name. He had named him. Unfortunately, the man did not seem pleased to see him. A darkness clouded Gourry's brow.

"It's been a while," he said with a slight frown, "but I'm not so stupid as to forget you that fast."

"Really?" Aiden, now Xelloss, said, a smile warming his face. "This is wonderful!"

"Been a few years." The man appeared more apprehensive as he looked to the side, searching for something, or someone. "You alone?"

"Yes."

Xelloss was aching to force this man to tell him everything he knew about him. It took all the control he could muster not to, to be patient and gain the man's trust, and then wait for the man to illuminate him.

"You mean Lina's not with you? Where's Lina? Is she all right?"

The man's blue eyes filled with anxiety over this Lina person. Xelloss could feel the other man's distress rush over him, followed by a surge of strength flowing through his body. It was immediate and intense-- and wonderful.

"Did something happen to her, Xelloss? Tell me!"

Xelloss couldn't help the smile curling the corners of his lips. He was elated! He had a name and man who knew him. All he had to do was hide the fact that he remembered nothing about his past while learning everything he could and hope for a total and rapid recovery.

"I'm sorry. I can't tell you anything about Lina here... now. Can we go someplace private to talk . . . Gourry?"

Where had that name come from, he wondered? But since the man nodded in response, it proved that he had remembered the correct name. His memories were still in his head, thankfully not lost; he just couldn't get at them.

"Sure. Let's take a walk." Gourry slid off his stool, dropping a few coins on the counter. "You seem chipper."

"I know. I can't explain why either." Xelloss shrugged in an exaggerated manner and nearly laughed aloud. "Ha! Oh, ah, this way. I need to stop by the local shrine."

"You're not going to blow it up, are you?" Gourry asked.

"No. Should I?"

"Don't think so, but seems either you or Lina destroyed most the ones I remember going into."

Xelloss tucked that piece of trivia away. Every bit of information was invaluable, a treasured part of the puzzle of his missing past. "So true." And as he said it, he knew it was so.

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

**Stranger in the Mirror**

**Chapter 2**

* * *

As Xelloss led Gourry across the empty, sun-washed road toward the shrine, the swordsman appeared to be unconcerned, but when they arrived at the entrance Gourry stopped and barred the way. 

"I meant what I said. Yuh see, I know some of the folks inside and I'd hate to be a part of hurting them, so I'd haveta stop ya." Gourry took an offense stance and his hand gripped the hilt of the sword at his hip.

"Blow it up, you mean?" Xelloss asked. "Certainly not." Dear gods, what kind of a man had he been for this man to distrust him this way, he wondered?

"'Cause you and Lina, well, that's what happened to 'bout every building you went in. Just the way it was with you two."

"Really? I had no idea I was so destructive!"

Gourry's eyes narrowed. "Talking more of that sarcasm again?"

"Was I being sarcastic? Actually, no. It's interesting seeing oneself through someone else's eyes, that's all."

Gourry wasn't so sure. "I'm just saying, you are destructive."

"Well, not today," Xelloss said with the kind of finality he hoped would soothe the man's suspicions. "I'm here for information only. I won't be a minute."

"_Then_ you'll tell me about Lina," Gourry reminded him.

"Ah… right."

Unfortunately for Xelloss, the shrine visit was a mistake. Not only had his staff been unidentifiable, it had actually given the priests the creeps.

"No, it is not of any Cepheid shrine, follower, or priesthood– ever, of any kind, whatsoever!" said one of the men he had questioned.

"That thing is evil!"

"Go elsewhere!"

"I coulda told ya that," Gourry told Xelloss as he led him to his own home. "Lina said your staff was a part of you or your power or something like that, I forget what. But it had something to do with dragons." He stopped in the middle of the road. "You know, we oughta go see Zel. He'd know what that red ball was made out of."

Xelloss wasn't certain if that was important any longer, but he was grasping at straws now. Without coming right out and asking, how was he to learn about his past? He was no further along knowing his true identity and what had happened to him than he was an hour ago. What if this Zel character was another numskull, or, possibly worse, clever enough to see through his act and discover his memory loss? Xelloss could imagine being disadvantaged that way, at the mercy of what to him were strangers.

Damn it all! Who was he, _really_, and who was this Lina person to him? What if he fell asleep this night and it happened all over again? Maybe he should write down all his experiences as he went along, just in case he started forgetting those too?

That was as depressing a thought as he could come up with and he was longing for a way out of it, when out of the corner of his eyes he caught the flicker of a shadow across Gourry's back. He jumped to one side to avoid contact and his skin broke out in a cold sweat. He felt a prickling ripple across his torso, but nothing happened. A quick check assured him that the darkness was cast by a potted plant outside a restaurant. It was only a shadow, but it had made his heart race.

More apparitions! He hopped around a tree's shady pattern, stretched by the low sun angle, not allowing it to touch him as they passed. There was another one! He skipped around the dark splotches that Gourry seemed to encounter with no problem. Other strollers were unencumbered, passing along the avenue caressed by shadows, stepping on shadows, mindless of shadows, just as he was mindless of his past. Their seeming ignorance of the danger he sensed in the shadowy world didn't make him feel better, but since nothing resulted from their contact, the rising tide of panic was quelled.

"You seeing phantoms I'm not?" Gourry asked him.

Xelloss agilely avoided colliding with the bigger man. "Oh, well...ah..."

"You always were kinda a fruitcake," Gourry mumbled.

Xelloss was mortified. He wasn't about to explain his problem with dark shadows. What was their significance? Was it a hidden fear from his past, a basic insecurity, or something new altogether? He didn't know, but he was absolutely certain Gourry wouldn't know either.

"He's rather clever, that Zel," Xelloss said more loudly than he'd intended.

"Yeah, _more _than clever, I'd say. Real smart and good at the kind of magic he does." Gourry looked over at Xelloss, waiting for the man to catch up, taking his odd circuitous route. "You always bugged him."

"I did?"

"Yeah, him and Lina especially. Some folks let teasing get to them."

"But not you, I see."

"That's right. Most stuff I just let pass."

Right over your head, I suspect, Xelloss thought to himself. So, Zel was a magic user, too; that would make hiding his impairment even more difficult. When Xelloss considered what little he knew of himself, he determined that he was a clever, inventive man, but was he duplicitous- _really_ good at deceit? It could be a valuable character flaw to have at his disposal right now, because he would have to perform better than he had so far with this unimaginative doofus. He readied himself to find out shortly.

They stopped at the threshold to a low, stone house. Gourry rapped his knuckles on the wood door, and it opened a minute later. Xelloss edged around the taller swordsman for a look at the inhabitant.

"Gourry? Hey."

"Howdy, Zel."

Xelloss saw a man, nearly as tall as Gourry, pale, with shoulder length dark hair. The young man with the penetrating blue eyes stared back at him. This, Xelloss acknowledged, was truly a clever magician with intelligence written all over his face, but completely unfamiliar. How disappointing!

Then without warning, memories flashed in a mad sequence: that staff with three rings at its top appeared; then he was viewing golden flying beasts circled overhead from atop a mountain peak; suddenly he was standing in a cavern, illuminated by a pulsating blue light, where the vision focused upon a lone figure silhouetted, a tall man with wings, but something was wrong with one of them; and then again he saw the ringed staff again, and a name came to mind. The images were intense and sudden, causing Xelloss to reel. Mid sway, Xelloss caught the door jam with his free hand and steadied himself with his staff.

"Rezo," Xelloss said as a gasp escaped his lips.

"No, it's just me cured, although I have to admit as I age the family resemblance grows," Zelgadiss said. His voice was low with an irritated tone.

"Yeah, you grew taller, too," Gourry said, chuckling.

Xelloss did not know this man, but he knew he should and he recognized his voice. How, strange. He straightened while continuing to examine Zelgadiss for familiar features. His face must have looked as blank as his mind.

"What's the matter, Xelloss? Don't you recognize me?"

"No," Xelloss answered honestly without thinking.

The answer apparently pleased Zelgadiss, and he smiled. "Good! I was hoping you'd come back so I could thank you personally."

"Ah, well, you are welcome," Xelloss said, weakly. He hoped no further explanation would be required of him, because he had no memory of ever having helped this man in the past, or anything else, only that he had associated him with a man named Rezo.

"We'll see," Zel said a trifle smugly. "After you and Lina took off, I followed up on that mysterious residence you told me about." Zel paused, waiting for Xelloss to say something.

Xelloss did his best. "Ah, and what did you find?"

Zelgadiss gave him a curious look, but answered. "As you had surmised, or guessed, it was Rezo's country home at the time he experimented on me, his backup laboratory concealed underground. All his research was intact and with the help of Seyruun's finest healers, the process making me into a chimera was undone, as you can see. The place was amazing, but more to the point, I found his research records, and brought them back to study. You know, when he harbored that piece of Shabranigdo in his eyes, he was able to tap into the demon's mind and learned a great deal about the demon race and how the demon lords created their servants."

Xelloss nodded and smiled a placid, unconcerned smile. "Is that so?" His complacency was so perfect he would have had to have been the finest actor of all time to pull off his carefree manner, had it not been real.

"Yes, it is," Zel said, frowning. "Including their priests and generals. Most interesting."

"Is it? How..." Xelloss stifled a yawn badly, covering with a cough, "industrious of you, and, um, thorough."

"Extremely," Zel agreed.

Xelloss didn't mean to be impolite, but he was disinterested in what the other man had to say and saw no reason why it should matter to anyone. Zelgadiss' frown faded, replaced by a whimsical expression, and Xelloss smiled enigmatically, pretending to be in on the secret. The entire interlude could have been quite funny, if not for the ever-present danger that he might accidentally reveal his memory loss niggling at his consciousness, all the while Zelgadiss was attempting to goad a reaction out of him based on some long-held personal dispute or history between them. It was an absurd situation, and Xelloss sinserely wished he could simply vanish, but since that was impossible he felt silly. In fact, he struggled not to giggle.

"Oh," Xelloss said, feeling that some reaction was required.

"Would you be interested in knowing what I discovered?" Zel asked, his eyes glittering with excitement.

"Maybe another time," Xelloss said. "What I'd really like to know more about is..." His voice trailed off. Zelgadiss was disappointed, and Xelloss could detect the emotion. Xelloss couldn't guess why he was so in touch with other people's feelings; although, he was dead certain they weren't in touch with his. From the man's reaction, Xelloss was afraid he may have made a mistake and said the wrong thing. Zelgadiss was no fool.

Gourry cleared his throat. Xelloss looked his way, noting that the swordsman had been bored by the earlier conversation that didn't pertain him, but was now pleased to have an opening. "Um, that's right. I brought Xelloss here to see you for a reason. Can we come in?"

Zelgadiss shook off his mood and looked past his two visitors, noticing for the first time that there were just the two men at his door. "Oh yeah, come in. Where's Lina?"

As Xelloss attempted to step past him and enter the small sitting room, Zel grabbed his shoulder. The grip was firm, but Xelloss could have easily pushed him off.

"Yes?" Xelloss asked.

"You didn't leave her, did you? Ditch her someplace?" Zelgadiss asked.

Xelloss shook his head and shrugged off the hand. "No."

"Because even after... everything, I still care," Zel said, his voice low, choking up with emotion.

"We both still do, Xelloss, _in spite of everything_," Gourry emphasized.

Xelloss had to defuse the emotional bombshell building up around him; it was making him feel lightheaded. He guessed there really could be too much of a good thing, or was it a bad thing? "Lina's fine, she's just on her own for a bit."

Both Zelgadiss and Gourry deflated. This bolstered Xelloss' confidence level, driving him to tag on an unwise elaboration. "She is visiting family."

"Lina's visiting her family? Her sister, Luna?" Zelgadiss asked, incredulous.

"Yes, her sister Luna," Xelloss said with a sense of satisfaction with his creative fabrication, which dissipated as Zel's shock washed over him.

"Will wonders never cease," Gourry muttered, shaking his head.

Zelgadiss glared at Xelloss. "I can't believe she'd do that willingly."

"Lina's full of surprises," Gourry blurted out, jabbing the red orb on the end of Xelloss' staff with a finger. "Oh, yeah, which reminds me, I couldn't remember what Lina said this was made of, but I knew you would."

Zelgadiss gave them both the strangest look. "Xelloss would, too. Ask him. He's the one that told us about the making of Dragon's Blood orbs."

"Dragon's Blood!" Gourry said with a laugh. "Yeah, that's what it was."

Xelloss shrugged apologetically. "I tried to explain..."

But his attempt to hide the truth backfired, as Gourry followed the thread of the conversation. "Yeah, he went to the shrine and no one there could tell him about a staff with rings on it or about the one he carries."

"Staff with..." Zelgadiss hesitated, and then met Xelloss' gaze with a hardened look. "Rezo had a staff with three rings at the top. They rang out as he walked. Very annoying, but it meant he didn't sneak up on me as a kid. But, you knew that, Xelloss. In fact, when you gave me the map to that old country home of his, you mentioned having met him before I was born."

If Zelgadiss hadn't been curious about his odd behavior before, Xelloss would guarantee he was now. Xelloss was certain this intuitive man sensed that something was up and wrong. If Zelgadiss was wondering why he was here, he wouldn't believe it was just to identify priest's staffs. Xelloss had to think quickly and come up with some good reason to satisfy this man's curiosity. It must involve Lina or Rezo, he surmised.

"Lina, Rezo, both good excuses to see you again," Xelloss said lightly, punching up the gaiety a notch or two.

"Naturally you'd think so. Anyway, I was just going to have my dinner," Zelgadiss said. "Would you like to stay?"

"Sure," Gourry agreed with enthusiasm, then remembering earlier plans he amended with, "Oh, ah... but Sylphiel'll be expecting me."

Oh dear. Xelloss feared being left alone with Zelgadiss. How would he be able to put anything past this man? He opened his mouth to make an excuse to leave, but couldn't come up with a clever lie in time.

"Then Xelloss, you'll be staying," Zel said, "In fact, you might as well stay the night, if you haven't made other plans." He didn't even attempt to hide the interested glitter in his eyes, and Xelloss' hopes sank.

"Well, actually..."

"He just wandered into me," Gourry said. "That would be great, cause I'm not so sure Sylph would be happy having him stay with us."

_And why_ _not_? Xelloss wondered. He was stung by the insult.

"Fine. You'll stay here and we can catch up," Zelgadiss said to Xelloss, who winced. "You can make tea while I walk Gourry to the door."

Xelloss assumed this was an ordinary activity he engaged in when visiting this old friend, and so he nodded, acquiescing his position of guest of honor, and went in search of the kitchen. It was clear to him that he and Zelgadiss had had a closer working relationship than he had had with Gourry. So, why hadn't he remembered his face and name?

The questions were mounting up like dead dragons, he thought, then wondered how he'd come up with that figure of speech, and then smiled at the pleasant imagery. He was delightfully complex.

The empty kettle was resting on the stove top and the container of tea was on the counter. He found that he knew that Zelgadiss liked his tea strong, and so, measured out the tea leaves in heaping spoonfuls. That was something, wasn't it? Knowing that tidbit about Zel? Something, yes, but he needed more breakthroughs and bigger ones and more of them, and lots faster!

Pretending nothing was wrong was hard, but he was growing more confident in his abilities. If nothing else, he had a future as a con artist. Maybe he had been one in the past? That wasn't a pleasant conclusion! Well, as difficult as the evening was going to be, at least he believed it possible be for him to pull off the ruse. Finding how easily he could play the two-faced role, however, filled Xelloss with mixed feelings. It was gratifying to be so gifted, for now, because he could conceal his amnesia, but it was troubling, because it hinted at a disturbing past. Deceptive and destructive!

Gourry and Zelgadiss seemed like nice men. "If I was that much of a bastard, they wouldn't have put up with me in the past, would they?" he wondered aloud. "Which means my situation isn't so terribly bleak. Possibly."

Yes. As he thought about it, he was rather well off. He wasn't face down at the side of the road, for one thing. He started to wonder what was keeping his host. Lucky for him, his ears were working properly and he had excellent hearing. When Zelgadiss stopped outside the door, Xelloss could overhear his conversation with Gourry.

"All right, tell me you've noticed that Xelloss is acting odd, odder than usual."

"Yeah, I thought so. It's almost like he doesn't know who we are, but he knew my name when I saw him at the inn."

"He's _making_ tea at my request, Gourry. At best, in the past he would have created it with a snap of his fingers. And was he really asking about Rezo's staff?"

Oh great, Xelloss thought, he filled the kettle with water. I'm doing this wrong?

"Yeah, and he really didn't know much about his own stick thing. Funny is all," Gourry said, shaking his head.

"Yeah, what's got me worried is that he's here and Lina's not. She might be in danger."

"But she told us not to interfere, Zel."

"I know, but that was in her _love life_. She made her choice and it wasn't either of us. I'll never understand how she could overlook what Xelloss is, and is incapable of..."

Zel hesitated, and Xelloss imagined him making a face, while dying to know what it was that he was 'incapable of.' What were his limitations? _What kind of a person had he been, anyway?_ He stared at the kettle of water willing it to boil on its own.

"But that's beside the point. I'll work on him and get the story out of him. He'll want to know what I learned from Rezo's papers, even if he pretends otherwise."

"I will?" Xelloss shook his head, and steam rose from the kettle.

"'Kay," Gourry said, turning to go. "I'll leave you to it. But if he hurt Lina in any way, he's gotta answer to me."

Xelloss shivered as a cold chill raced through him. Great, he was caught in a complicated love triangle- no, love _cube_. No, that sounded dumb. A love quadrangle or something. He was also expected to be more curious about what Zelgadiss had learned at Rezo's. Great, just great. _Who were all these people?!_

Zelgadiss stuck his head in the kitchen, interrupting his ruminations. "Thanks," he said, watching Xelloss pour the hot water over the loose leaves in the teapot. "The night's warm enough. We can eat out back. Go ahead, I'll be right along."

Xelloss stepped out into the empty courtyard and set the teapot and two cups on the table. The sudden quiet soothed him. The darkness felt clean. The shadows, no longer furtive and ominous spirits of the day, were instead deeper and comforting like traces of something he couldn't identify, something settling and familiar. Those pools of darkness were to him vestiges, artifacts, clues that something was present. As the shadows continued to grow with the rising moon, he saw them more as refuges from danger. Yes, that was it, like feeling secure in a father's shadow. Not that he recalled having a father.

"Lighting!" Zel's voice cut the silence. His spell cast tiny spheres of illumination to chase away the gloom and create new mysterious shadows around the borders. Zelgadiss set out a platter of sandwich makings, then asked, "So, how was Lina last you left her?"

"Happy as a clam." Xelloss hoped. He poured them both tea and copied Zelgadiss' elaborate sandwich construction, slathering mustard on the dense dark bread slice, topping it with greens, sliced pickles, cheese, and thin pieces of salami. Intuitively he added, "She is staying with family."

"Visiting Luna _and_ happy, now that's hard to believe."

"Oh?" Damn intuition anyway! Whatever had compelled him to said that?

"Yes, Xelloss. Lina was always terrified by the mention of her older sister's name. I can't get my mind around her going to see her, on purpose."

"Ah, yes." He could sympathize with that. Xelloss couldn't get his mind around much of anything. This meeting was going as badly as he had hoped it wouldn't. The two men exchanged glances, communicating mutual confusion, and then both bit into their sandwiches.

Zelgadiss drank most of the tea, set the cup down, and snorted. "What is it you see in her?"

"Who?"

Zelgadiss pursed his lips. "Lina."

Xelloss scanned his emptiness for some detail; any minutiae linked to the name Lina would help, but he found none. "I don't know," he said at last.

"I didn't think so." Zelgadiss sat forward. "I had more to offer her. Damn it, I loved her and yet she went off with you! What did you promise her that was so attractive?"

"You'd have to ask her."

"I would, if she were here, although she wouldn't tell me either."

Zelgadiss looked so sad, Xelloss wished that he really could answer, and then felt a mild rush of energy flood his senses. He didn't think it was from the single bite of food he'd taken; it was a reaction to Zelgadiss' emotions, he was certain. It had happened earlier.

"Her hair."

"Pardon?" Xelloss asked, thinking he had daydreamed over the rest of what Zelgadiss had been saying.

"Lina's hair. My favorite thing about her, physically speaking, of course."

"Oh? How so?" Xelloss asked.

"What do you mean? Her hair was unique! Everything about her was special, but her hair was beautiful, unless she's done something to it. She hasn't changed it, has she?"

"Oh, I don't think so," Xelloss murmured then avoided the conversation by taking another bite. He had to force himself to eat. He had no appetite and the food lacked flavor.

"You mean, you don't know? Don't you notice what she looks like? Don't tell me it's all just auras and power signature stamps with you!"

Once again, their eyes met, and this time Zelgadiss must have caught a glint of undisguised surprise and something like fear, because Xelloss felt the other man's anger subside and be replaced by something more akin to smugness. Xelloss closed his eyes, but he had been too late.

"It is, isn't it?" Zel pushed. "I'll bet you can't even tell me the color of her hair."

Xelloss could not. He considered for a moment all the people, all strangers, that he had seen since his awakening, and tried to recall the color of their hair– black mostly, and dark brown, but certainly not auras, whatever those were. Gourry was blonde, Zelgadiss' hair was dark, and his was dark. Blonde seemed the most rare, and so he guessed, "Blonde."

Zel choked back a laugh. "Are you color blind as well? Unless she dyed it, her hair is crimson, brilliant red with highlights like fire. It matches her eyes." He drew a deep breath and then added, "All wasted on you, apparently."

"Apparently," Xelloss said, sighing into his tea cup. Why was it that he had no memory of this woman? When he looked up, Zelgadiss was studying him.

"I have to say, Xelloss, I've never seen you this way before. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were..."

Xelloss' skin prickled. He had the overwhelming urge to disappear into the void, in the universe, the great beyond, but could not. Whatever magic he was capable of, it was not instantaneous travel, because the more he concentrated on moving, the more he felt glued to the seat of his chair. But that wasn't always the case; he had once moved instantly and great distances. He was certain that he had been able to vanish and reappear elsewhere prior to his accident. He didn't know why, but the realization was firm in his mind, which was stupid since he was unable to make anything happen now, regardless!

"...hiding something," Zelgadiss concluded. "Well, be that way. I won't tell you what I learned in Rezo's lab, then."

They both finished their food in silence, and then Zelgadiss stood. "It's been a long day for me and I haven't the energy to battle wits with you tonight."

Zelgadiss cleaned off the table, carrying the platters, stacked together with the tea pot and cups, back into the house. Xelloss looked one last time at the comforting shadows, and then followed slowly, wondering what was to become of him.

"Are you really staying over?" Zelgadiss asked him.

"If it's no trouble, "Xelloss said.

"No, there's a spare room. It's just--" but whatever Zelgadiss was going to say remained unspoken.

"A surprise? Sorry to put you out."

"No problem." Zel shook his head and continued to scrape crumbs off plates, rinse platters, and wash cups, setting them all aside to air dry. "Come with me. I'll show you the way."

Xelloss picked up his staff and trailed Zelgadiss down the hallway. Zel opened a door and stepped aside, allowing Xelloss to enter first. The room was small and uncluttered, like the rest of the house, from what Xelloss had seen. It wasn't that Zelgadiss was poor, Xelloss noted, because the furnishings were well made and of good quality, just simple and unadorned. The teapot had been well-balanced, with a delicate spout, the table and chairs, solid and comfortable, and now as he removed his gloves and ran his fingers atop the bed, he discovered sheets, smooth and soft. The blanket wasn't itchy like the one from the inn where Xelloss had awakened. By the bedside was a table and on the floor beneath it, a stack of books.

Zelgadiss was not a man who collected things, except books, apparently, and Xelloss remarked about it.

"Yes, I've always been interested in magic books and, now that I have a house in which to store them, I have become a collector. Enjoy the reading material," he said and then without waiting for a reply, he went out and closed the door with a quiet snick.

Alone again, a flush of melancholy overran Xelloss' mind. Suddenly he was loath to face the morning and life. He was reluctant to move, wishing to throw himself on the bed while at the same remain standing, or possibly floating? Without removing his clothes, he closed his eyes and thought about floating, and then he did, about ten inches directly over the bed. And there he remained, his problems rolling around in his head.

He kept returning to the image of the flying blonde hair- he was sure now that it was flying in the air- followed by the burning brightness. He was torn. What a predicament: whether or not to use these men, who were his only contacts with his past, or to avoid them and set about creating a new life for himself.

"I'm not going to sleep, that I know," he decided. "I don't want to risk losing what little of myself I've got."

**TBC**

**End, Chapter 2**


	3. Chapter 3

**Stranger in the Mirror**

**Chapter 3**

* * *

"I got this terrific lead," Lina announced. 

The spirited little sorceress flashed her eyes and tossed her wild tangle of red curls, heightening the sensation of danger he detected tingling along her fringes. It was intoxicating, still, even in a dream. In the way of jumbled dreams, his brain scrambled to fill in the previous few moments. She had been standing outside his room wearing a tiny nightshirt which hardly covered her privates. His room, but not his house, although whose house he was living in wasn't important enough to recall. Maybe it was Lina's. He had been reading, thumbing through an old tome, when her knock aroused him from his chair. When he opened the door, this vision appeared.

"It might be a little dangerous, but what worth doing doesn't, eh? Anyway, I want you to accompany me. Alone. Just you and me, okay?"

He was amused by her eagerness and, in spite of himself, Xelloss was somewhat flattered. Lina was attracted to him no matter how modest he might want to be, that much was apparent. He found himself responding, because he found in her everything which appealed to him in a human woman: charming, intelligent, confident, entertaining and powerful with just a hint of vulnerability which complimented him. A fling was not a completely unfamiliar situation. He had no instinct to drive him, but he responded with assurance and definite pleasure.

"Will I be more than your handy sidekick?" he said, looking at her with amusement, baiting her gently. He knew she was bored, looking for adventure, something utterly different from anything her friends could do. She had courage, that he did not doubt, and a desire to broaden her experience.

"Oh, yeah. Let your imagination go wild."

"You can't come dressed like that." He looked her up and down with open appreciation. She was delightful to the eye, a perfect blend of spirit and raunchy taste, enough beauty displayed to hold a man's attention, and yet with that measure of self-possession to make it plain she was her own person and there was immeasurably more concealed than what a man could learn unless he gave a great deal of himself in return. He found he most definitely wanted to accompany her, whether he was of the slightest use or not to her quest. Her company would be enjoyable, and she had chosen him over the other two men in her life. His ego soared, knowing no bounds.

In dreams there were no boundaries.

Xelloss moaned, sank onto the bed, and rolled over, but exhaustion pushed him back into his dream memories. Lina was once again with him, but they were under attack, hiding behind a barrier of rock. He couldn't see. The scene was out of focus, dark, and indistinct. He was overwhelmed with a sense of pending doom. Peril, death, ruination! Before he could stop whatever he had been certain was going to happen, he was blinded by a brilliant light, leaving afterimages of a woman with a cloud of blonde hair crying out. Pain and despair!

He had slept fitfully and now awoke confused and heavy-headed, wondering what was wrong. Then the hideousness of the dream returned, filling him like darkness till he hardly knew how to bear it. He had lost his mind, except for that one horrible memory. He lay frozen, as if time were suspended, until finally intelligence told him the only way to survive was to do something. Action would drive the horror back and free a fraction of his mind in which he could live, at least until exhaustion made him too weak to resist.

But there had been more than just the one terrible memory; he had dreamed of Lina. Lina, the red-haired sorceress who had chosen him over Gourry or Zelgadiss, but, _again, for what?_ _To do what? Why can't I remember?!_ He screamed the questions aloud, but no answering words echoed back to soothe his raw emotions, only the sound of breathing, and not his.

"Who's there?" Xelloss croaked into the darkness.

"I heard you cry out and came to see what you were up to."

His face came out of the shadows, but his hooded, blue eyes were unreadable in the faint glow emanating from his hands; a light spell, Xelloss concluded. Zelgadiss smiled, showing his teeth. There was a flash of respect in his eyes, but no warmth. "I know a great deal more about you than you do about me," he conceded with a touch of arrogance.

Xelloss ran a hand through his hair. "Is that so?"

Zelgadiss smiled back, his look hard, as if he also had secret knowledge that amused him. "Yes, and you know why, so you can drop the act."

Xelloss' mouth fell open and Zelgadiss smiled more widely, relaxing. Xelloss saw the change in his eyes and was uncertain. His eyebrows rose, interest sharpened in him.

"What do you know about me?" Xelloss asked. He allowed no timber or lift in his voice to indicate whether the answer mattered to him or not.

"Don't you know? Can't you guess?"

Xelloss said nothing.

"What was my makeup before I was cured? What is Lina's favorite hobby? What was the name of Gourry's heirloom sword? You can't tell me, can you? You don't remember! I may look completely human again, but I retained certain latent abilities, and they tell me something has happened to you. You had better trust me. The game's up, Xelloss."

"Ah, so it is," Xelloss sighed and squeezed his eyes shut. What had he to lose by confiding in this single man? "I've racked my memory, what there is of it." A bitter mockery passed over his face. "There's nothing at all. Not a shred of my past. Oh, Gourry's name, for no damned good reason that I can guess. Of Lina- I had a dream just now. She was beautiful, amusing, a delight to be with I suppose, but there's not even a ghost, not a tiny thread, of familiarity." His voice rose, sharp in desperation. "Nothing!"

Xelloss felt that Zel caught a moment of the nightmare, the bitter horror of living inside a man you did not know. The one thing which in all eternity you could never escape was yourself.

"But how ...?" The words escaped Zel's lips in a gasp.

"I don't know, really. I woke up this morning, like this, in an inn, transported there by some thoughtful farmer, I assume, who had discovered my body at the side of the road," Xelloss gave the other man a wry smile, "or so I was told. I don't know the how or why, but I get this re-occurring vision of a terrible explosion, I'm blinded by the light, and there's a woman with long blonde hair."

"Sounds like Filia. We were in a battle for control of our world once, and she was there. There were plenty of explosions, too."

"Filia? No, that name doesn't ring a bell." Xelloss made a face. "Still, I haven't much else to go on have I? I suppose I should go see this Filia person, just in case. You wouldn't be able to direct me, would you?"

"You can't just teleport there yourself?"

"You mean I _could?"_

Zel's expression softened and Xelloss knew that quite suddenly Zel understood him as he probably never had before.

"Yes, Xelloss, you could traverse the astral plane."

"Oh, well, what do you know? I had a hunch I could teleport, but the astral plane? Is that special then? Has it something to do with how some of us seem able to call on magic while others cannot?"

"Yes, to both questions. How do I start explaining?" Zelgadiss muttered more to himself and started to pace. "Well first, the astral plane is not in the physical world, here, where we are. Some magic affects the real world and others the astral plane. White magic is largely defensive and includes strong healing spells. Black magic is offensive entirely and utilizes astral attacks almost exclusively. I dabble in both, but specialize in shamanistic magic, which is linked to ground, water, fire, and air. Ah... like this light spell is real."

"I can also control devastating astral spells that attack the spirit side," Zelgadiss told him with a swell of pride, but Xelloss suspected that there was a lot more he wasn't telling him.

"How impressive," Xelloss said with a smile. "And me, what sort of spells did I, _do_ I, use primarily?"

"Black magic."

"Ah, I see," or at least he wished to appear to. "But teleporting, is it unusual?"

"For humans, very."

"So, I must have been extraordinary, too."

"Yes," Zelgadiss admitted. He turned away, looking towards the window, mulling over the situation, when a hint of grayness in the quality of the light spoke of morning. "It's almost dawn, so unless you think you can go back to sleep...?"

"No, I should be up and out. I've imposed on you enough," Xelloss said.

He rolled off the bed and to his feet gracefully. He may have slept, or not, but since rest eluded him this night, he decided to get up at the cost of looking drained and empty. On his way to the door, he avoided glancing at the mirror, not wanting to see a walking nothingness.

Zelgadiss blocked his way out of the room. "Nonsense. You're not thinking of going it alone out there, are you? Take it from me, having only yourself for company gets old real fast. Besides, you'll never find Filia that way. Oh, and just so you know, Xelloss, you have plenty of enemies out there, who if they knew your vulnerability right now, would destroy you or make you suffer horribly while trying."

"Oh, my. Was I _that_ bad a man then?"

Zelgadiss took his time answering. "Sometimes and sometimes you took a part in saving the world from worse creatures. I don't really think I'm the one to judge you, because in a way you were just a pawn limited by your nature."

"Aren't we all?" Xelloss said, understanding that Zel was withholding more than he was telling him.

"Perhaps," Zel smiled faintly.

"Ah, just for my benefit, were we friends? I'm sorry not to remember you."

"Maybe it's better that way." Zelgadiss chuckled and shook his head. "In a manner of speaking, we shared a kind of kinship. I don't want to say more. We'll see if your memory returns first." Zel spoke with a finality that Xelloss took as closure on the subject, for now. "I haven't anything else to do, so I'll volunteer to take you to Filia's place, and believe me, you'll thank me for being there when she sees you."

Xelloss smiled. "I take it she and I were not friends."

"I'm not really sure what to call your…association. It hadn't ended well, last I heard."

As Zelgadiss grabbed for his sword and belted it on, he outlined his plan. "We'll stop by Gourry's first and tell him where we're going. He might join us, but it's doubtful."

"Busy man?"

"Yes, and more importantly his wife's got a baby due soon, which you wouldn't be expected to know anything about." Zel led the way out of his house and sealed the door with a complicated shaman incantation, which, to Xelloss' delight, he recognized.

"Okay. I should say something to her about that?"

"If you get the chance," Zel said with an odd expression, "you can wish her good health. You only met her once and you frightened her."

"I did? How?"

"I don't know. You may have made a pass at her, but later on she was somewhat grateful to you for removing Lina from the area."

Xelloss wondered if Zelgadiss was being serious or not. He was unreadable at times. "Gourry was attracted to Lina, right?"

"Very, would be my opinion, but when you and Lina took off, Sylphiel saw her chance and, well, here we are."

Zelgadiss rapped at the window beside the porch. Gourry cracked open the tall, oversized door and stepped out, "Hey, you're back."

"Hello," Xelloss said as politely as possible. He felt unwelcome.

"I'm taking Xelloss to see Filia. She might have some...clues he's looking for."

"Uh, huh. I'd sure like to go with you, but, you know." Gourry cast a glance over his shoulder at the closed door.

"That's too bad," Xelloss said. "Wish Sylphiel a safe birth and a healthy son for me."

"Son?" Gourry's cornflower blue eyes lit up for the first time since his two visitors had arrived. "You know that for a fact?"

And, funny, Xelloss did. "Yes." He took a step backwards when an unbridled flow of joy threatened to suffocate his senses. "I'm... sure."

"Gee, thanks, Xelloss. This'll be great news, just great. Sorry I can't join you, and all." In an uncanny moment of clarity, Gourry cocked his head and said. "What sorta clues are you looking for?"

Zelgadiss began a long-winded story about dragon hunts and old ruins, when Xelloss interrupted him. "Actually, it's a secret."

Gourry burst out loud laughing. "Ho, ho... now that's sounds like the Xelloss I remember. You had me scared yesterday, acting all strange. Okay, you don't need my help. That's okay."

"Sure. Later, Gourry," Zel said with a wave and stepped off the porch.

"Oh, Zel," Gourry called after them. "Better tell Amelia. She's expecting to see you today. That's what you'd told me."

"Oh," Zel said, recalling his prior appointment with surprise. "Yeah, we'll do that. Thanks!"

Xelloss skipped to keep up with Zel's fluid gait and avoid encounters with the shadows. That fixation hadn't gone away as he had hoped it would after the friendly contact he'd felt with the night shades. "Amelia? Do I know her?"

Zelgadiss made a half smile, which disturbed Xelloss to the roots because he knew for certain the man was going to withhold critical information from him. "Yes, you do. She and I are engaged- just recently, in fact."

Well, Xelloss thought, that wasn't so big an admission. "Congratulations."

"Yes, ah, it's a bigger deal than you think. She is the princess of Seyruun, in line to inherit the throne after her father, whom you also know, or did."

Xelloss noted the touch of satisfaction and wonder in the other man's voice, compelling him to ask, "You are, I take it, an unlikely choice for a mate?"

"I _was_; I'm not _now_. Up until my cure, I was a chimera, created out of Rezo's laboratory with wire for hair and blue, rock-golem skin... and the pointy ears of a blau demon. I was quite a sight, as you might imagine."

"Alarming the townsfolk."

"Unless I covered up, yes. Sometimes they'd come after me with pitchforks and shovels, thinking I was an evil monster or something."

"Hmmm, sounds like your situation has improved. I'm glad I had something to do with your happy transformation."

Zel shrugged. "My appearance improved, but I lost some of my power in the transition."

"But it was worth it? You got the girl?"

Zel smiled, "Yes, I got the girl. I also inherited all of Rezo's estates making me a wealthy and titled man, worthy of a princess."

This was an important milestone in achieving manhood, Xelloss knew, and he could feel the other man's soaring self-esteem. "And_ I_ got the girl, too," Xelloss thought to himself with satisfaction. Aloud he said, "A title, that's nice. So, what should I call you?"

"Sir Greywords, but then I never honored you by using your title, so let's just keep things informal."

Xelloss ducked under a phantom branch and swirled athletically, nearly contacting a shadowy spray of leaves he hadn't accounted for while distracted by this new information. "I have a title?"

"I'd rather that information came back to you naturally," Zel said. "That's the palace up ahead."

Xelloss masked his disappointment. He yearned for his name, his history, his past. "But..."

"Don't pressure me, Xelloss," Zel said sternly. "I'll explain if and when I need to. And for gods'sakes, stop dancing around. You're drawing attention!"

"I'm not dancing. I'm avoiding...them." Xelloss made his final leap into the unbroken sunshine before resuming their conversation. "So you'll become a prince when?"

"We are to be married in spring. What 'them' is it that do you mean to avoid?"

"Spring? That's a year away! They are the unnamed, unseen lurkers on the edge of our reality that come out of the shadows."

"Long engagements are customary. If we can't wait, we aren't suitable. And, Xelloss, I think your mind was damaged. There are no 'lurkers' here."

"Suitable? Obviously you don't see them. I said they were 'unseen,' but I sense them. You make love sound a dull and boring as choosing apparel, as in _suits_."

"I got that. Touched in the head; I repeat. Your sense of humor hasn't changed at all, sadly."

"Nor has yours. You always were a sarcastic bastard," Xelloss said. They both halted at the tall gates barring their entry to the palace grounds.

"What was that you said?"

"I-It just came to me. I do remember you, or something about you. You're not the same. I recall a sour disposition and a short temper."

"You brought out the worst in me," Zel said defensively.

"Well,_ that's_ something to hold onto," Xelloss said snippily.

He was tired of being on the outside of himself, and each little bit of progress reminded him of so much he had lost. Still, he was glad his friend was a rude and erect flame of resentment and not a small, collapsed bundle of self-pity, and at that, Xelloss smiled and looked quite human.

"I'm sure your own cure is only a matter of time," Zelgadiss said, his tone bordering on pretentiousness. "Time and relaxation."

"Oh and that's how it worked so very well for you? You simply sat back and waited and did nothing?" Xelloss asked, his voice taut, the warmth retreating from his features.

"No!" Zel shouted. "I searched tirelessly for years for my cure, but it was different. I was a human turned into a monster. And you..." Zelgadiss studied him, his face torn between conflicted rage and pity.

"And I am a man who is a stranger in the mirror. My memories may return given time, or not. Somehow I have to come to terms with that, while I follow every lead until I discover what happened and who I was."

"Or die trying," Zel murmured as much to himself as to Xelloss. "Perhaps you should change your appearance and go far away. A fresh start. Maybe you'll be happy not knowing the truth."

"You can't possibly believe that, can you?" Xelloss said. It was unthinkable that the other man should suggest running away, and for a second Xelloss felt a desperation verging on despair to know everything about himself. "What is it that you know about me that is so dreadful you won't tell me?"

"I won't say. Not at this time," Zelgadiss said sullenly after a brief pause. "There is a reason for your lost memories. Something happened to you that was so traumatic your mind shut down to protect you. If I just tell you what I know, what happens then?"

"Why, it might be pure, blind destruction," Xelloss said smoothly as if it he knew it were true.

Zelgadiss' eyes narrowed. "My point exactly. Let's go in."

Xelloss leaned around the moving shadows as the iron gate swung open. Luckily, there were no more shady spots to hinder his forward progress to the palace door. Guards recognized him, bowing briskly and allowing him to pass alongside Zelgadiss.

"I've been here before, I take it," he whispered to Zel.

"Several times. Twice, you saved the life of Prince Philionel, my fiancée's father and ruler of the kingdom of Seyruun." Zelgadiss stopped and looked directly in Xelloss' eyes, trying to read something in them, Xelloss supposed.

"Ah, a noble gesture on my part."

"You were keen on keeping Lina safe at the time. I can't guess why you were so gallant and self-sacrificing, except that you probably actually weren't. It was all a means to an end with you."

Xelloss felt the sharpness in his friend's tone and once again knew that much more was being kept secret than said. "I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I'm unable to defend what I was in the past or what I did."

"I was being unfair," Zel said. He let out a sigh and apologized. "Sorry. Understand this, Xelloss. I rarely got the better of you. You always kept secret information which would be of value to me, or the others, and never did anything that didn't somehow enhance your cause, whatever that was."

"Ah, I see, then you and I weren't great friends after all."

"No, but we fought together to win over great odds, and you did tip me off on that hidden laboratory, so we have a kind of camaraderie, I guess you'd call it." Zelgadiss turned his attention to the doorman. "Yes, we're here to see Princess Amelia."

Xelloss waited in a parlor while Zelgadiss went first to see Amelia in private. He glanced over the mahogany furniture, the rich tapestries, and a finely cut crystal vase, brimming with freshly cut roses. Although he recognized nothing, there was a feeling of familiarity, as if he had been surrounded by artifacts of this kind in his past.

A pretty young lady bounded into the room, giving him a quick hug, and greeted him with a smile. "It's been so long!"

"Has it? Well, hello," he replied weakly. "I congratulate you and Zelgadiss on your coming nuptials."

"Thank you!" Amelia said. Her merry demeanor dampened Xelloss' good mood; although, he could think of no good reason why it should. "You look the same." She turned to Zelgadiss as if to confirm this news. "You said he was different."

"I said that he was a changed man," Zelgadiss said. "I meant internally."

"Oh! Yes, I get it." Her faced turn up at Xelloss', the smile positively beatific. "Oh, Xelloss, I just knew you'd find the path to goodness and righteousness someday! I can't tell you how very pleased I am."

"And yet you have," Xelloss murmured as his knees weakened and he lowered himself into a nearby chair. He felt near to choking as waves of affection and positive well-being threatened to drown him.

"Are you all right?" Zelgadiss asked, his voice low to that only Xelloss could hear.

When Xelloss looked up he barely restrained the urge to lash out at the other man, who obviously expected the girl to affect him this way. "No."

Before he could make the Zelgadiss account for his obvious insincerity, a man of robust proportions and bristling hair strode into the room. The hair atop his head flew out at the sides, his black eyebrows danced above his eyes like living creatures, and a moustache swept over his lips and curled up into his sideburns. He clasped Xelloss' hand, lifting him to his feet, and clapped him on the back twice before crushing him to his chest in an emotional embrace.

It was a heady experience. Xelloss curbed the longing to pass out as both the man and the princess bathed him in joy and good cheer. He hardly caught what was being said.

"...always liked the lad who saved my life –twice in fact, once from a demon impersonating a courtier and once from that Lina Inverse woman's powerful spell. Can't stay and chat. Meetings await. Already behind schedule, you understand. Looking a bit peaked. Stay for dinner!"

"Er..." Xelloss gasped.

In a whirlwind of vitality and high spirits, Philionel pushed off, wishing them all well over his shoulder.

Amelia was beaming. "I'm so glad you came today, Mr. Zelgadiss, and a little early, too."

Zelgadiss blushed and flashed Xelloss a warning glance. Xelloss knew that Zel had forgotten his appointment with Amelia and wouldn't have called at all had Gourry not reminded him. Naturally, the man didn't want his girl to think she rated a low priority on his 'to do' list. Zel's distress washed over him in soothing billows, so Xelloss smiled and rewarded him. "Actually, I can't stay," Xelloss told her as he searched for an excuse to leave abruptly. "I'm..."

"On another assignment? Did you bring Lina along?" Amelia blurted out.

"Not this time, although I am returning to her as soon as I complete this...assignment. Yes." He remembered one of his pressing concerns and asked her for a sheaf of paper and a pen, "To write my memoirs, while I still have them."

Amelia pulled a bell cord, summoning a servant. "No problem, Mr. Xelloss. I have just the thing." To the entering page boy, she said, "Please deliver a journal and pen to the door. Have it there for Mr. Xelloss when he leaves."

"Which will be straightaway!" Xelloss added. "I must hurry."

"I promised to show him to Filia's," Zelgadiss said.

"Then you'll be right back?"

"Yes. If anyone can help him with what he needs, it's her."

Amelia scrunched her face into a scowl. "I'd think she'd be the last person he'd want to see."

"Times change!" Zelgadiss said, scooting Xelloss out of the room ahead of him.

Fortified by the general air of discomfort and disenchantment permeating the market square, Xelloss perked up. For a moment or two, he even ignored the multitude of budding evils lurking in the shadows. Zelgadiss was taller than Xelloss and walked briskly past the vendors, bound for the road out of town, forcing Xelloss to trot to keep up. Up a street, around a corner, through an alley, and then across a bridge they sped. Once they were on the outskirts of the main city, Zelgadiss cut his pace.

"It's not much further," Zel said.

"Filia's a loner, eh?"

"She lives above her shop, which sells vases and tea. She makes much of the pottery and has a kiln, which is why she doesn't live in town."

"Ah, an artisan."

Zelgadiss nodded then fell silent awhile. "Do you ever hear voices in your head calling you or telling you what to do?"

Xelloss made a face at him. "I lost my memory, not my mind!" Zelgadiss had been getting at something else, he guessed. "No, should I? Do you?"

"I don't, but I don't know about you."

"Well, that makes two of us," Xelloss said, then laughed. "How do you stand being around them?"

"Who? Oh, Amelia and her father, yes, well," Zelgadiss paused, thinking. "That's why it's me and not you marrying her. Anyway, if you thought they were fun, just wait until you see Filia."

"I don't trust you."

"And I don't trust you."

Xelloss rose into the air and floated a few inches over the road, wondering why he hadn't thought of that sooner. It was an effortless means of travel, or nearly. "But that's unfair. I _have_ to trust you." He didn't like Zelgadiss' answering smile, but he was the only person for him to converse with. "So tell me, was I married to Lina?"

"I have no idea, but I doubt it. There wasn't a shrine around that would open to either of you."

"That doesn't make sense. I'm a priest."

"What makes you think so?"

"When I awoke, there was a woman who'd seen me come in and seen to my things. She said I was, by my clothes and staff, I think."

"You were no holy man," Zelgadiss said.

Xelloss let out a deep breath. "What a relief! Those guys in that shrine made my skin crawl, and they weren't too pleased with me either. I never felt so out of place."

"Looks like you should go with your feelings." Both men shared a comradely chuckle and pressed on.

**TBC**

**End Chapter 3**


	4. Chapter 4

**Stranger in the Mirror**

**Chapter 4**

* * *

Seyruun proper was in a valley with the palace on high ground. Zelgadiss was leading Xelloss out of the higher elevations, down the sloping road into the soggier basin. After crossing the River Seyruun by bridge, the path dipped into the vast, fertile lowlands. Zelgadiss and Xelloss waded through the fog that lay like a canopy. The jackets of passing merchants and farmers fluttered like graves clothes. 

"Filia doesn't like the city life, I take it?"

"She's not human. She's a dragon and prefers her privacy, plus she needs space to run her kiln."

"A-a dragon?" Xelloss' voice caught, but it wasn't because he was surprised at the revelation; no, he felt revulsion. He had had a gag reaction. He noticed the other man watching the effect his information had on him, and fought back his questions. Xelloss didn't want to add to Zelgadiss' satisfaction. Zel was keeping from him a very important secret about his past. Xelloss liked games, but not this one. He would discover the mystery on his own.

"Dragon." He savored the word on his tongue and tasted a metallic tang, as if he had bitten his cheek, but he hadn't. "Are dragons common in Seyruun?"

"They aren't common anyplace, but then they are hard to tell apart from humans, when they want to blend in."

Xelloss absorbed the facts, shaking off the ill-feelings. "Is this still Seyruun then?"

"Yes, it's a small village once separate, but now merged."

"Merged, indeed," Xelloss remarked. "The buildings are so close together they looked stitched...no, knitted by the interwoven bricks at the edges."

"You never went on like that before."

"No poetic observations?"

"No, you were the silent spectator type."

"The shop windows reflect steely panes as if they were riveted shut," Xelloss said.

Zelgadiss grunted.

"Doesn't look friendly," Xelloss said. "But it has a good feel to it. I like it here."

Zelgadiss looked over and shook his head. "You would."

"No shadows," Xelloss said, smiling.

Zelgadiss shook his head at the other man's weakness. "Here we are, by the way."

Iced-over steps inviting death led to Filia's front door. "The Mace and Vase," Xelloss said, reading the sign advertising the business. "How quaint."

Xelloss slipped in front of Zelgadiss. He had hardly rapped once on the door before it was flung open wide.

"Milgasia!"

Xelloss stepped backwards, knocking into Zelgadiss, in order to avoid the young woman's out-stretched arms. Again, the taste of metal assaulted his mouth. Iron. Iron was in blood. "Oh, my. I think you have me confused for another man."

"Oh!" Filia banked the fires of love and huffed in disgust. "You!"

A surge of anger washed over him, not his own. He wallowed in the ripples of the back wash, allowing it to strengthen and refresh him.

"I thought you were dead!" she said.

"I think I nearly did die, but as you can see, I survived. You sound disappointed."

"When someone dies, other people have to learn to go on with their lives. Weddings happen and babies are born and even the joyful events hurt because the people who are gone aren't there to witness them. That was not the case when I heard of your demise. I hosted a party. A real gala event and got stinking drunk trading celebratory drinks with, well, that's not your business."

Xelloss did not want to think of finality, especially acknowledging that the past could never be brought back. It was the locking of a door and he chose to concentrate his efforts on unlocking them. A dark cloud of ire muted him.

"I'm sorry, but we do need to speak to you. We won't be long," Zelgadiss said.

Xelloss smiled reassuringly as best he could.

"You certainly _won't _be long," Filia said. She stepped inside, holding the door ajar. "Very well, hurry up. I can't stand here all day."

Zelgadiss tackled the final step into the shop. "We aren't interrupting anything, I hope?"

Xelloss followed, mulling over his impressions of the three women he'd just met and comparing them. Where Sylphiel had been well-bred and shy, Amelia was perky and righteous. But Filia, this woman was haughty and holey in turn.

"Heavens, no!" Filia chirped as if word had come from above. "I just run a shop and I'm expecting company." Her eyes lit on Xelloss, then flitted to the door.

"Then I'll be brief." Zelgadiss wasted no time explaining his purpose. "Xelloss is looking for Lina. There was an accident and now they are separated. You and Lina are close; I thought you'd have an idea where to look. He needs your help."

"You tell that general commander or whatever he calls himself--"

"General Priest." Zel had to smile. From the way she spoke, Xelloss might have once pulled ranks out of a hat.

Hearing his title, Xelloss' eyebrows shot up, then a wall of emotion engulfed him, like the wind pounding on a window, blowing up in waves. He raised his eyes to meet a pair of blue eyes, smoke funneling up from the fires within. She was attracted to him and she detested him. Yes, he almost recognized this dragon lady, but somewhat differently- from a different perspective even.

"I remember you as being completely without guile. Was that true, or just what I wanted to think?" Xelloss asked.

"You- you, piece of garbage dare to come into my house and insult me!"

"Filia, stop grumbling and come listen to what I have to say. Then I'll be going," Zelgadiss said.

Xelloss nearly laughed. He thought that "grumbling" was a highly inadequate word to describe the blazing opposition that lighted Filia like a torch. She throbbed with it, like a pot about to boil over. What would it take to raise the heat just a tiny bit more? One more notch ought to do it. Xelloss' smile became a smirk.

"Was I wrong? Sorry." Xelloss smiled ruefully. "Did I say something appallingly thoughtless or was I too familiar?

"_Sorry_! You don't know the meaning of the word! Nothing about you is sorry, unless you've come here just to be mashed into a _sorry_ mess, which will happen if you try and mess with me!"

"Filia, stop making yourself angry over something that hasn't happened yet," Zelgadiss said. He let out a weary sigh.

Xelloss admired how the other man could exert remarkable patience given the company. Xelloss withdrew into his own thoughts. How was he expected to behave normally around old "friends" when he couldn't recall the foundation for those relationships? He was tired of always rediscovering himself. Xelloss sensed the difficulty Filia had keeping her temper. How much would it take to provoke her into betraying all the pent-up past that lay between them, he wondered?

Filia straightened and sniffed. "You are right. I forgot myself for a moment. Come sit down and I'll bring you some tea."

Over tea and cookies, Zelgadiss repeated the simple story and request, but leaving out all the important facts concerning Xelloss' loss of memory. "And that's why we need to locate Lina."

"'We' seems to have a trickle effect. Down to me. I have a life and business you forget!" she retorted.

In the background, two men's voices swelled with emotion, bickering over who was going to "tell the boss." Filia slapped her tea cup onto the table. "Excuse me a moment."

Zelgadiss stood to follow her, but when Xelloss moved, he said, "Stay here. I can do this better without you aggravating her."

Xelloss opened his mouth to argue, but Zel's icy glare solidified Xelloss' choice to sit back and wait. To relieve his boredom, Xelloss migrated over to the liquor display. Cut crystal decanters sparkling in the hazy light tickled his fancy.

"Do I drink?" he asked himself. He chose a carafe at random and poured a glassful. "Strong smelling stuff." He didn't bother with a sip. He emptied the glass in a long draught.

Discovering himself step by step, as one might a stranger, was stretching his nerves. When he lay unsleeping in the night, he was afraid of knowledge, feeling himself full of unknown schemes and disappointment.

He fingered another bottle, reading the label, and refilled his glass.

The shapelessness of his doubt was worse than certainly knowing the truth would have been- he was certain! The more he struggled with his missing memories, the more stubbornly his mind resisted. His past would only come thread by thread, a fragment at a time, it seemed.

His glass was empty and he felt no thirst, but he never felt the need to drink or eat. Why was that? Everyone else enjoyed refreshments- why not him? Who had taught him to speak, dress, and act this way, while hiding his secrets with natural ability?

He poured a third glass, or was it the fourth?

(o)

Xelloss was in the drawing room getting drunk when Filia entered with hair the color of tawny port and eyes like Sapphire Gin. Maybe it was the proximity to her that put him in the mood of spirituous metaphors.

"Say!" he greeted her. He was dark, eyes glittering black, chips of the night-sky, intense when open. "Don't worry about me. I'm about this deep," he said, holding up the near-empty bottle of gin he had been draining.

Surrounded by Jillas, Gravos, and the child-like Valgaav, Filia was nearly as fortified as Xelloss, "It's all right, guys. I really think Xelloss has just come for a talk with me," Filia said, picking up his drink and smiling, and excused both herself and him.

Xelloss' eyebrows shot up. Filia's mood had evened out. Why, she was almost attractive! He couldn't say the same for the men in her company.

"If you say so, boss-lady," Gravos said, speaking for them all. He made Xelloss think of a misplaced piece of garden statuary as he stood there looking all scraped, chipped, and dusty. A very tall statue that had to dip his head at the thresholds. Around and around he turned, collecting the smaller fox-man and the even smaller mint-haired boy in his gyrations. "Back to the shop for us."

Xelloss' vision was blurry, however, and he wished Zelgadiss would stand still when he tried to talk to him. "She's agreed then?"

"Yes. She'll take you to Lina." Zelgadiss nodded, said "good by," and left.

Xelloss willed his mind to clear as the room emptied. His effort resulted in partial success. At least his grip on his staff was unaffected, he thought gratefully. He could stand without wobbling. He knew he had consumed enough alcohol to knock out a normal man, and he was hardly intoxicated, so he was pleased to have discovered yet another detail that set him apart. Filia was watching him with interest.

Xelloss smiled at her. "Thank you. I was positive that you would turn me down."

"I was about to, but Zelgadiss convinced me."

She radiated calm now. Xelloss knew then that Zelgadiss had shared a piece of significant information with Filia. He was aching to know what it was.

"I'll get my wrap, and then we'll go," she said.

"What about the shop, your expected guest?" Xelloss asked.

"This won't take long." Filia led him out the back door to a well-worn path. "It isn't far to her home, if she's there."

"Oh." For a long while Xelloss could think of nothing to say. The cold wetness in the air enveloped him, supporting his own magical activity to cleanse his body of the poisons he'd drunk. While they walked, he studied Filia's profile. He had instinctively known that this woman was not the one in his dreams, but now he was absolutely certain she wasn't. That mystery had yet to be unraveled. Filia stopped and stared out over the dank fens, listening.

"Ah," he said to break the silence. "You were expecting someone else when we showed up."

"Yes."

"You seem very secretive about it."

"You're trying to trap me into a confession."

"Oh, I see." He looked down at the mottled, black pond water. He studied the reflections intently. "You had an assignation—I'm sure that's the sort of word you like—with him out in your country house."

Xelloss struck at the water with his staff, trying to fix the moving shadows. "Why don't you meet your boyfriend at a nice restaurant in town?"

He saw her reflection looking intently at his in the water. She searched his face as one does when one is looking for signs of mild lunacy, leaning closer to get a better look. "I'm seeing Milgasia in secret because he's married."

"Oh." He guessed he should have known that. He smiled kindly adding a touch of sympathy to his voice when he said, "So... his situation hasn't changed, then?"

"Not exactly."

Xelloss could tell that the dragon lady found him good looking and he realized how much he enjoyed exercising his charm and the power it gave him. It takes a very fine character to have power and refrain from using it, and he wondered how much character he had had in the past, then instantly doubted it was much. He felt pleasure in her obvious appraisal of his person.

"You've got a thriving business and a fine home, Miss Filia." He smiled. "Milgasia would give up his wife for _you_, surely."

He was amused she took this buttering-up as a serious compliment. Filia Ul Copt did not have quite as much of anything as she wanted to think—brains, talent, money, beauty, but she was genuine.

"Well, thank you. According to the grapevine, of which I am the chief pruner and waterer," Filia said slyly. "Things are progressing in that direction. She's moved out of their home and is currently staying with her sister."

"I wish you the best," he said, standing. Milgasia's affectations had always made him feel like sleeping where he stood. That knowledge came in a sudden rush of ennui. He could feel her hackles settle as she went for the cream.

She almost purred, "Thank you."

Milgasia was an older dragon and he remembered him. Milgasia was soft and fearful. He never led other dragons in battle. He preferred to guard relics at Dragon's peak. Xelloss watched her profile and suddenly felt moved to speak. "But I think you can do better. You deserve better."

The sudden rush of blood to her face brought color where previously there was only luminescent pale. "You don't know what you're talking about. You have no idea what real love is."

"Ho! And you do?"

"Yes."

"And Zelgadiss and Gourry, but not me?"

"Not even them, not in the deepest sense. With men like you, love is...well, the word is_ Aichaku_, AI (love) _CHAKU_ (fit), which means 'Love fit.'"

"Love fit?"

"It's a term for the sense of attachment one can feel for an artifact. It denotes a deep kind of emotional attachment that a person can feel for an object. A kind of symbolic love for an object that _deserves_ affection not for what it does, but for what it is."

Xelloss stood watching her face, wondering what she was jabbering on about. "For instance?"

"Gourry's obsession with his trusty sword, for one. He fondles that thing and spends more time with it than his wife."

"It could mean the difference between living and dying, and it has to be kept clean and sharp," Xelloss said. Why he was defending the man, he didn't know.

"Hn," she grunted. "That's possible. Okay, I'll give you that one, but Zelgadiss and his bento box is another thing altogether. He treats it to a room of its own, a sanctuary. I have seen him caresses the thing like a lover. He would never forget it, but Amelia is often further from his thoughts than... Well, it's not the kind of love a woman feels, that's what I'm getting at."

Xelloss shook his head. "You never asked him what the box contained?"

"No. What does it matter?"

Xelloss knew. In his brain, the answer materialized where others were hidden away where he was forbidden to go. "It was his mother's. She died giving birth to him and he was raised by his grandfather. It was all he had of his past." He turned to stare directly at Filia.

She recoiled, a hand flung to her mouth. "I didn't know! Oh, how terribly, terribly sad and stupid of me."

He smiled. "So, when you say I don't know love, perhaps you are wrong about that, as well."

She didn't meet his gaze and seemed about to argue, but stopped herself. "We stopped here because the fog is dense and no one can see me. I'm going to transform and carry you the rest of the way to where Lina lives."

"I thought you said it wouldn't take long?"

"It won't if I fly us. It would take weeks if we were restricted to walking."

"You will carry me, then?"

"Yes, in my dragon form, unless... You aren't afraid of falling, are you?" she asked.

Now Xelloss was certain that he had always been magical, a god who wore a human body. He did not trip when he walked, for example, when he was quite certain others would, and he did not know fear. "No, I'm not afraid. You just look small." _Too weak._

"Not for long. Turn your head. Don't look!"

He watched and saw why she asked him to look away. In her transformation from human to dragon form, her body was naked, if only for an instant. He said nothing about what he had seen to the large, golden dragon with her shimmering mane and silly tail bow. Effortlessly, he leapt onto her back and wrapped a length of her hair around his wrist to make a secure hold.

(o)

She landed gently at the edge of a forest, a house visible in the distance. He caught her gazing at him again. "Yes?"

Filia looked away quickly. "You can change your mind. You don't have to go back to her."

"Are you saying I shouldn't?"

"You are probably happier the way you are now. If you go in there, you may discover your undoing."

He gave her a quirky smile. "How mysterious you are!" He leaned into her and kissed her cheek. "Now I shall have to go and prove myself."

Xelloss felt her outrage at his audaciousness and laughed, walking away. "Don't go away, though. I might need a ride back to town, if things don't work out."

He knocked at the cottage door and listened for the occupant. She was at home. Xelloss' lip curled into a tiny smile. The home was sturdy, well-kept; she had done well for herself in the world. His admiration for her was profound. The door opened and there she was. He knew her immediately and without question. Obediently, heart thumping, and mouth dry he said, "Hello, Miss Lina."

"Xelloss!" Her face reflected misery and confusion. "What on earth are you doing here? I was sure you were dead!"

"People keep telling me that." He almost smiled, but the smile died on his lips before it was real when he realized Lina had meant that she had wanted him dead and to stay that way. He absorbed the shock. "Oh." His face tightened until it was curiously bleak.

"When I destroyed Zelas, she took your spirit back and you died. I saw it happen!" Lina croaked.

He was totally aware of the emotions drowning him and the memories flooding his awareness. His body was shuddering. He gasped for breath and started talking twice before getting it out. "I am not dead, Lina, but I want you to explain what happened very carefully."

She stepped back into her front room, dazed. She wasn't afraid of him. But she was cautious. "I can do it again, if I have to, so don't threaten me."

"Just tell me, who I am."

"Xelloss, once the servant of Beastmaster Zelas, the last remaining demon lord under Shabranigdo, now a free demon, whatever that means." She boldly examined his face. "You _are _alive."

"Yes." His mind was reeling, memories continuing to fall into place. "Tell me what happened to Zelas."

"We got into a situation and you had to call on Zelas for help," Lina said.

Lina was keeping her distance and keeping an invisible barrier between them. Xelloss knew she was lying or half lying. He felt windows popping open in his mind. _Zelas._

"We did?" he pressed. "Clever, powerful people like us?"

"Okay, yeah, well...heh, heh... You musta figured that out, huh? It was more that I had set up a trap. I gotta tell you, these were the most convoluted ingenious spells ever thought up by anyone, and I was the one that put them together. The key part being that I could handle them."

"Your spells--" he began, but the vision of the woman with flying blond hair filled his mind. Memories, disconnected and horrific, flickered and wavered as he sought to place them in order. He would make sense of chaos this day!

"Yep!" Lina grinned with pride. "Mine. See, Zelas couldn't attack without her energy being sucked up and used against her. It was spectacular! I saw her blow. In the last minute, she hit you with a spell, probably thinking you had duped her into the trap, and I thought she was taking back your power to use in a last ditch attack. It looked that way; you collapsed, dead, I thought, and she blew up. Guess I was wrong about that part."

Xelloss stared in disbelief as pieces of the puzzle formed a clear picture of that tragic moment. Now he understood. "Zelas was protecting me," he said in a low voice. "She cut off our attachment, my conduit with the astral plane so the spell could not reach that part of me on the physical plane. The shock must have caused me to pass out."

"Possibly," Lina said unsympathetically. "The point is: I did it! I destroyed all of Shabranigdo's servants. Zelas was the last to go."

Xelloss remembered. Through machinations he was a part of, but that Lina had orchestrated, Lord Deep Sea Dolphin and Lord Dynast had destroyed each other in a massive strike of confusion and trickery. He could smell blood and fear as if he were coated with them. His mind reeled. The room tilted for an instant.

Lina was still talking. "Humankind will be safe forever because now Shabranigdo's parts can't be reconstructed and all demon-kind will eventually disperse into the void and into the annals of history. Only they all haven't, I guess. You're still here."

He had been responsible for the death of his own master. He was utterly, terrifyingly, blindingly, and desperately alone. He would have given anything at all to have had Zelas in his arms and cling to her, but instead there was an unbearable loss. That was the worst truth of all: he was alone. The word was a kind of death. He could have done something to save her, couldn't he have? He had not only failed his master, he had been the unwitting perpetrator of her ruin.

"Xelloss? You still awake in there?" Lina asked.

Xelloss nodded slowly. Had he been in love with Lina? That he did not have a ready answer for. If he had, it must have been a shallow kind of emotion, because it no longer haunted him. Lina had exploited him in many ways.

"You used me to lure Zelas into the open so you could… kill her?" Xelloss asked in an unnaturally hesitant tone. "You didn't... love me? Ever? At all?"

"_Love_ you? Xelloss don't be an ass. We were barely friends! You're a demon. They don't love. You simply bled the pleasure from it. Your kind is evil wanting nothing less than the destruction of everything and a return of the world to chaos. For years you used me, tricked me, manipulated me to use the Giga Slave, among other things; I just returned the favor. We're even."

"Are we?" he asked. His face wore a pinched look, showing the strain of the last few days. "So getting even, that's _why_?"

"Why? The 'why' is because I can! I worked to be the best and now I am. I don't need to defend my motives to you or anyone else."

His shoulders dropped as he turned, disappointed to the door. "Sometimes I think we float in a kind of unreality, as if the horror of the past is all imagination which in a little while will disappear and life will be as it was before. I've been tired without knowing why; concentration slipping from my grasp and slithering away."

_Because I'm no longer in contact with the astral plane_. _I cannot teleport and I think I see the spirit world in the shadows of darkness._ A pulsing drummed inside his chest, drawing about his misery and despair a cloak of comforting gloom. This was his Darkness. His eyes shadowed with rediscovered knowledge, and he regained his Purpose. He wasn't insane, just damaged.

He knew he was speaking mostly to himself. Lina was preparing a spell and not listening. Aloud he said, "But, now? Even? Oh, Miss Lina, now I know who I am again. You should have killed me when you could."

He stepped out the door, slamming it, and looked around. He could sense Lina inside powering up, steeling herself to cast a deadly spell which would mean his end. He recognized the spell this time. Deep in the recesses of his mind, from the moment he had lost consciousness weeks ago until now, his preservation instinct had been preparing a counter spell to defend himself.

He could destroy Lina and her cottage with a thought. He was drowning in his own loss needing to lash out– anger was momentarily easier to cope with.

Then he saw Filia. The large, golden dragon had waited for him. She was watching him. If he laid open his own feelings, she would see the rage and confusion inside him, and he could not afford that. She would be repelled by its savagery– and frightened. He did not want to lose her respect, although, he didn't know why. Filia was safe, as much as anything warm and living and vulnerable was ever safe.

"Containment!" he shouted.

Seconds later, Lina flew out of doors. "How did you do that? That spell was full proof! FULL PROOF, I tell you! Hey, come back here and give me back my magic!"

Xelloss never turned back. He approached the dragon wearing a serene expression. "You knew."

"Zelgadiss told me you had forgotten that you were a demon, that's all." She looked sad. Lina's howls wafting into the forest. "What happened in there?"

"I'll tell you later," he said. "Please, just take me away from here."

**TBC**

**End Chapter 4**


	5. Chapter 5

**Stranger in the Mirror**

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Xelloss and Filia returned to the swampy lowlands near her home. He waited, staring into the tonal grey mist, until Filia transformed back to her human form. Nice back, he thought to himself. No sign of a bra either. He guessed what was holding Filia up was pure faith in her ascendancy. He looked away, smiling. 

When he turned back to face the dragon lady, he felt her sadness fill the void created by the outbound flow of anger. His meeting with Lina had not been disappointing; it hadn't been anything like he had imagined. He hadn't found true love, but he had found answers to the niggling questions haunting him day and night. Xelloss felt the dragon's eyes searching his face, and he wondered why she chose to burden herself with his problems.

"Lina never loved me," he said. He chose to begin with that.

"Well, anyone but a demon would have known that. Oh!" Filia must have deduced from his bowed head and silent response that she had been too harsh. "I'm sorry. That was insensitive of me."

"Don't worry, it's all right. I know who I am, that I'm a member of the demon race."

"Yes, well, I wasn't sure, so, I'm sorry. You must have cared for her… very much, in your own way. I had no idea what she was up to. The others, Zelgadiss…Gourry… I'm sure they didn't either."

He nodded and smiled faintly, acknowledging the dragon lady's kindness, then shrugged, helpless to remember exactly how he felt once before. "I have no memory of having loved deeply. Feelings of pleasure, not more. I can't vouch for the past, but I feel nothing good about her now."

Her surprise was rich on his tongue, and as he realized the reason, understanding Filia a little bit better, his smile grew crooked. "Zelgadiss didn't tell you I lost my memory in an explosion."

"He most certainly did not. What? It's not true, certainly. Dear gods, Xelloss! You mean you actually did?! Your memory?!" Filia looked horrified.

Well, it was horrifying, wasn't it? "Yes."

"Oh, how terrible! No, the little weasel just said you didn't seem to know you weren't human. He should have told me!"

"He promised _me_ not to. He keeps his confidences, to some extent, as it suits his own purposes."

Filia huffed. "I think he likes you better when you believed you were a human, or at least I guess he _thinks_ you might live out your life happier thinking you were a human, an odd human." She made a funny face, which fell as she became more thoughtful. "But to lose …everything?"

"Nearly," Xelloss said. "Some has returned. I know that Lina used me to destroy the other demon lords, and that Lina thought I had died when she killed my master. By the way, I didn't die, because Lord Zelas protected me at the last second."

"Zelas. Beastmaster Zelas. Gone. Yes, I remember. Lina was delighted with that feat. I can't say I wasn't, too, but as I said, I believed Lina when she said you'd died saving her; that is, saving Lina. But that wasn't true, then, was it?"

"No."

"Do you think Zelas took way your memories?"

He hadn't thought of that. "I don't know if that had been intended, but that's what happened either because of the blast or the shock to my system when she cut off my access to the astral plane."

He paused and drew a deep breath, not that he'd needed the extra air. As far as he could tell, he could hold it indefinitely without causing harm. He let it out anyway thinking that it was just another instance of how he imitated life. How pathetic! Well, he had put off saying aloud what he had to long enough. What he would admit next was difficult. "I'm locked into this human form until I discover how to break the seal."

"Oh, Xelloss," Filia said, her voice breathy, raw with emotion. "I'm so sorry, a-and I'm glad you told me."

"Funny that I should," Xelloss said. "But in spite of the danger signals I get around you, I trust you."

He reached out and touched her hair, brushing away a few loose strands. Again, the metallic tang filled his mouth and revulsion. He snapped away his hand. To his surprise, she blushed deeply.

"Filia? What is it? I'm really still in the dark about my past. If there is any way you can illuminate me, I would be in your debt."

"Oh," she began, her voice wavering. "I don't know. So much has happened."

"I'll repay you in anyway I can. Just name your price."

That didn't move her, though.

"Please. Put yourself in my place. Wouldn't you want to know?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean that it's a good idea."

He waited, watching her face as she made her decision. "Filia, there was something between us, wasn't there? And Lina came along and that changed. Were we lovers?"

"L-lovers!" She seemed to want to add, "Not bloody likely!"

For a moment, he had reveled in the idea that she had been one of his conquests. "Ah," he sighed, relinquishing that illusion.

Filia pulled her delicate pink cloak tighter around her. "Oh, no, well… nearly. We might have been, if not for Lina. I don't know what good it does to tell you all this."

His eyes flashed open. So they _had _been close! "Please, go on."

"She just waltzed up to the door one day and asked for you."

"I was living with you?"

"You were living in one of the spare rooms. It was very…"

"Proper," he said, chuckling.

"Well, yes, but I was going to say 'secret.' You are aware of how unusual a friendship like ours was--"

"Still is--"

Filia blinked as she appeared to accept their current friendship without argument. "Demons and dragons are enemies from time eternal."

"Enemies? I had no idea, except that that might explain the feelings I get around you."

Filia touched her headpiece. "It's this. My priestess tiara is a demon deterrent. I, ah, took it off around you, in the past."

"It's an irritant, I assure you." He chuckled a little. "So, Lina came to your house, asking for me?"

"She just took you away. It was always like that. Lina would come around and you'd be blind to everyone else. Zelgadiss told me he thought it might have been conditioning or a part of your orders."

"Possibly," Xelloss said. "But it was still the wrong thing to do, to leave you like that. Well, if it's any consolation, Lina has no control over me any more."

Xelloss met Filia's gaze a moment, but she looked away.

"What happened to her? What did you do?"

"I countered her spell and sealed her magic. She won't be a threat to me again."

"Sealed her magic? How will she live? What will she do?"

"I have no idea. I suppose she will have to suffer along as best she can, just as I will. Perhaps her many friends will comfort her. I really don't care."

"Do you care about anything, anybody?" Filia's eyes flooded with tears, which she wiped away irritably.

"I apologize, Filia. I don't remember. So much is still vague. It's frustrating," he snapped. He found he was matching his feelings to hers. His were unreachable, or unknowable, if he ever had any emotions independent from those around him.

"I can't even imagine," Filia said. "It must be like coming out of a dream and discovering you had a dishonorable twin acting in your stead."

She wanted to make him feel better, and he found that knowledge soothing to his ego. He smiled a genuine smile. "Yes. I think your imagination is quite accurate. And… I think you were very brave to have befriended me."

That made her smile. "I think it's a miracle that Zel has. He even preserved the secret of your amnesia."

"He said I led him to his cure. I'm sure he felt a debt of honor. Oh, he learned something about demons he was intent on telling me, or teasing me about. He said it had to do with demon creation. I had no idea what he was going on about at the time, nor any interest. I was wrapped up in my own problems."

"Well then, that settles what we do next," Filia said. "We shall seek out Zelgadiss and find out what it was he learned about demons."

"Thank you, you are very kind." Her unsettling look startled him. "What is it?"

"You have changed, Xelloss. You hardly think the same anymore."

"Really?"

"Of course, you didn't give away what was on your mind in the past so I don't know for sure. We'd better go."

"We're walking?"

"Yes, I don't want to attract attention in Seyruun. Neither demons nor dragons are commonplace or terribly welcome."

"Oh. So, tell me more about demons and dragons. There seems to be large gaps in my memory." He smiled and shook his head, sending his dark, glossy hair rippling across his shoulders.

"I think I'll let Zelgadiss do that. I have a biased viewpoint, as you can imagine."

"You gave a party to celebrate my death," he murmured. "I guess you have."

"Xelloss, I just said that to hurt you. I didn't host the party. Someone else did."

"Someone else? Let me guess. Milgasia?" He definitely hated that dragon. Instantly a piece of the past popped into place, and he remembered him distinctly.

Filia tilted her head to the side, using her headdress to hide her faint blush from his view. "Yes."

"Of all the damned people to remember," he said, shaking his head. "I have memories of him, old ones. He was a craven dragon who sequestered himself in his Dragon's Peak aerie to avoid the violence of the war. He feared me…"

"Because you killed all his tribe with a single spell, he said!"

"He told you that? " Xelloss chuckled and shook his head. "I killed a band of warriors while he and his spineless tribe watched. That is why he so afraid of me; I killed the strong and the brave and left the weak and the cowardly."

Xelloss took her arm and wrapped it over his as they started across the Seyruun River. "As I said, Filia; you can do far, far better than turning to a married man, a vow-breaking creature like him, for comfort and security."

He felt her tremor through their contact, and let her feelings flood his mind and soothe his soul, because they were lovely mixed feelings of desire, shock, and lust.

(O)

Zelgadiss had not yet returned to his home, so Filia suggested they wait for him at a street side café. Xelloss recognized the restaurant with the potted trees, which he had passed before. He relished having memories of any kind. Clouds obscured the sun, thankfully, eliminating the shadow problem, and the chilling breeze scared off all but the hardiest patrons.

Filia ordered tea for them both. "Never turn down a chance to drink tea," she said. "In any case, if the little weasel's still at the palace, he'll come this way and we'll see him. Didn't tell me you had amnesia-" The rest she had to say was lost in an unlady-like, dragon growl.

Xelloss studied her profile. She was tense, vibrating with charged excitement and pent up passions, the complete nature of which he could not determine. What he _could_ do was use their past relationship to his advantage and pump her for information, but that concept suddenly lost its appeal as the wan light lit sparkles in her hair. Whatever had motivated him in the past now seemed pointless in the light of his self-discovery.

"So, did you know I am the highest ranking demon alive right now?"

"Yes."

"Have I servants and minions?"

"I couldn't say," Filia sniffed. "With you gone and the lords gone, who knows what's happened to the underlings they and you commanded?"

"I wonder…" he mused. "I wonder if the strange sensations I get from the shadows are my servants trying to reach me through the astral plane." Xelloss spied Zelgadiss' now-familiar form in the distance. "Ah, you were right. Here he comes."

Filia waved and caught his attention. The young man returned her wave and trotted over to their table.

"That was quick," Zelgadiss said. His eyes looked wonderingly at Xelloss. "Did you find Lina? Did you get your answers?"

"Yes it was, yes we did, and… yes, a few. It was disappointing, actually," Xelloss said, standing. "Can we go to your place?"

Zelgadiss nodded curtly and spun away on a heel. He never wasted a movement, yet he was graceful and nimble. Xelloss wondered if he had always been that way, even when he had been encased in a skin of rock. Yes, he had. Xelloss could remember the shaman's dance and lithe motions in his castings. He had had silver hair and blue skin. Xelloss remembered the chimera Zelgadiss, and he remembered making him very, very angry.

"You're smiling," Filia said. "A different smile."

"Just remembering more about Zelgadiss as he was before his cure."

Zel snorted.

"What I can't understand is why I helped you undo Rezo's spell."

Zelgadiss twisted his head and glared at the demon, who was grinning back. Zel rolled his eyes and sighed. "We had a bet."

"Oh? Did I win?"

"Do you think I'd tell you?!" It was Zel's turn to grin. "If you don't remember, then it's your loss."

"So, I _did_ win!"

"You only won if you remember what and why."

"That's not fair!" Xelloss cried.

Zelgadiss snickered.

"Would you two little boys quit your squabbling," Filia snapped, but she ruined the effect by smiling. "Just like old times."

"Really?" Xelloss said with a light laugh. He wrapped an arm over her shoulders and drew her close, kissing the top of her head before freeing her. "I like the way things are now."

Filia nearly lost her balance, but she didn't bat his arm or snarl at his daring. She liked the new turn in events, he could tell; he lapped up her warmth and uncertainty like a starving man.

Filia insisted on tea before talk. More tea. Where did the woman put it all, Xelloss wondered? Xelloss took charge of preparations, leaving Zelgadiss to entertain Filia as best he could. "Do you have lemon?" he called from the kitchen. "Filia likes a little," he was proud to remember.

"In the fruit bowl," Zelgadiss shouted, then turned his attention to what Filia was telling him.

"He told me he's sealed in his human form. He can't feel the astral plane either. He seems to be taking it all in stride," Filia said. "But he wants to know what you learned about demons."

Zelgadiss shook his head and settled in a chair beside her. "I don't know how he'll take the news I have, but I won't keep it from him."

"No tit for tat?" she asked.

"I admit, it's a temptation to treat him like he did me, but I'd like to think I've grown up over the years." Zelgadiss placed his hands on the table and stood. "I'll go see what's keeping him."

Xelloss had been listening in on their conversation, but what he told Zelgadiss was that he was looking for cookies,

"Sorry. I don't have a sweet tooth and don't keep them. There's bread and honey." Zelgadiss lifted cups and plates with a spell, but carried the steaming tea pot. "Can you handle the milk and sugar?"

Xelloss gave him a funny look. "Ye-es. I think I can juggle them, if you'd like."

Zelgadiss snorted, and then smiled faintly. "No, just carry them."

Refreshed, again, with a cup of tea, Filia began, "Zelgadiss, why don't you begin by telling Xelloss about demons."

For the next half hour Zelgadiss explained everything he knew, what he believed to be true, and even the few things he only suspected were true about demons. Filia embroidered with her own take and then they told him about Valgaav and Gaav.

Xelloss laughed. "Well, I hope I fair better in a human form than either of them!"

"Well, Val is a delightful little boy, now."

Zelgadiss sputtered in his tea. "He's a holy terror."

Before Filia could decide whether to cry in defeat, wallow in humiliation, or stand proud and defiant in defense of her little charge, Zelgadiss said, "I don't know any other way to put this, so I will be direct. When I was in Rezo's labs, I learned that Xelloss was once a human."

"W-what?" Filia cried out.

"You have quite a flair for the dramatic," Xelloss said.

"Might as well get this out, don't you think?" Zelgadiss met Xelloss direct stare.

Xelloss nodded. "Yes, no reason to put it off. Go on."

"From Rezo's notes, I learned that Zelas created Xelloss, after effusing a human with her astral material, replacing the internal organs, the flesh, everything, creating a being which would last practically forever, and be bound to her."

Xelloss' face went white as he absorbed the information.

"Surely she killed the human first," Filia said.

"No, but I'm sure at some point in the process he died." Zelgadiss paused, expecting Xelloss to say something, but he didn't. "Rezo wrote that the human mind was suppressed, but not totally, which explains why you behave more like a human than say… Mazenda or Kanzel ever could. Plus, Zelas empowered you with twice the energy of any other demon who wasn't a lord. It's, ah, similar in a way to how Rezo created chimeras out of humans…" his voice trailed off.

"Are you all right?" Filia asked.

Xelloss nodded. "Did anyone else know this?"

"No, particularly Lina. I thought she ran off with you in a bit of a temper tantrum over my reluctance to show her Rezo's lab notes."

"Just reluctance?"

"I flat out told her it was my hard-earned information and that if she wanted information on demon kind she would have to go through you, just like I did. ."

"That was cold," Filia said.

"Glacial," Xelloss murmured.

"It had all started before that, of course. Lina was capricious. I thought she loved me, although she kept vacillating between Gourry and me. I was ticked, so when Xelloss came for a visit, I was more than happy to work out a deal-"

"Our bet," Xelloss put in, hoping to learn the details of that, but Zel was not forthcoming

"-- and take off on what turned out to be my final adventure in search of a cure. Put some space between Lina and me. I sure as hell wasn't going to share the results with Lina Inverse Bitch Supreme!"

"And so, I won this bet and got...?"

"Then, when I refused to share the notes with her, she kicked me out of her place and moved in Gourry. It seemed to be a permanent arrangement, from his standpoint."

"Did I ever get my reward?" Xelloss asked, his voice small and lost.

"A few days later, she packed up her belongings, ditched Gourry, and hooked up with you. Consider that your reward."

Xelloss wrinkled up his nose at Zelgadiss and made a face.

"Lina seemed the same to me," Filia said. "I hadn't noticed how much she changed from the cheerful—"

"Self-absorbed, gluttonous, fickle-"

"Well, thankfully, I have little memory of Lina at all," Xelloss said, cutting off Zel's rant. "Still, if those notes contain what you've told us here, Lina would have been a very dangerous person to have her hands on that information. Quite likely, I wouldn't be standing before you, alive and healthy, today."

"Hey, if you don't believe what I've told you, I can show you Rezo's notes," Zelgadiss said in his defense.

Xelloss shook his head. "Not necessary." He pinched his own bloodless arm. "Hmmm. I always thought you and I had a lot in common, but I never would have guessed how much. Thank you for telling me, Zelgadiss. You've been very kind, and I'm afraid I haven't been very nice to you in the past. I owe you an apology."

Filia had never admired Xelloss more than she did at this moment, and that knowledge brought a weak smile to his lips.

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Zelgadiss said gently. "You built your own image. There was nothing naive or easily misled about you back then. You were full of imagination and subtlety. You may have been a part of an illusion, but you were the chief architect of it. The rest of us only helped. And believe me, we were happy to let you. It was easier, when traveling with you in our company, to believe you were a capable, clever human sorcerer, than remembering that you were a dangerous, devious demon."

"How very polite you are," Xelloss said.

Zel's blue eyes flashed up and held Xelloss' with a storm of feeling that his casual, easy elegance had completely masked. Xelloss shuddered with its impact.

"Manners provide the thin veneer of civility between us and the darkness, Xelloss. We must hold on to it at any cost, because if we lose it, we face chaos."

"I see." Xelloss' voice was very quiet, soft as his eyes began to blaze and his Purpose began to create that unbearable tension inside his Darkness. He thought, if he fought against the seal hard enough, he might penetrate the barrier between his warring natures.

Or, maybe not.

This was his opportunity to encompass a richer existence. If he wanted to be a part of life, not merely a watcher, then he would let himself love as well. Perhaps it was the nature of caring that he could not help it.

"What are you to do now?" Filia asked him. Her voice cracked as she added, "Where will you go?"

"Ah…" But then, there was no choice to make; his own nature had already made it. If friendship could hurt so profoundly, what in heaven's name could love do? "Well, for starters, is that spare room still available?"

And both Zelgadiss and Filia said simultaneously, "Yes."

They all laughed nervously a moment, before Filia rose from her chair and said, "Tonight, you should stay here." She smoothed the folds of her dress, her eyes down turned, her voice hesitant, but her attitude determined. "I have a… final… appointment to keep; a duty to discharge."

Xelloss could feel emotions churning, his not hers, surprisingly. "And then?"

She smiled suddenly and radiantly. "Then I think you'll come stay with me, if you'd like."

His demon-imposed dark purpose had had its chance, its time. It was now his turn to find his own reason to be in this world, his own self-directed purpose, and live independently. When he looked in the mirror next, he was certain whose face would be looking back, not completely a fully-known entity, but not a stranger either.

Xelloss stood, touched Filia's arm lightly, and smiled. He had already acquired a best friend in Zelgadiss and, if he had read the situation correctly, he had also "gotten the girl." Being a human would be a snap.

"Yes, I'd like that, thank you, Filia." He pulled out a small journal and handed it to Zelgadiss. "I won't be needing this after all. Look inside."

Zelgadiss opened the cover and on the first page Xelloss had written: "A friend in a time of need, is a friend indeed. Thanks, Xelloss," followed by the lines of a spell. He looked up at Xelloss. "You're welcome, but what's this for?"

"The spell? Said this way and you can guarantee your child will be a boy; using the alternative wording will promise a girl is born."

"No kidding?" Zelgadiss smiled.

"No kidding!" Xelloss laughed. Yeah, a masterful demon like him was going to make an extraordinary human being. He couldn't wait.

**The End.**


End file.
